Trump Has No Authority to Federalize Elections

President Trump is once again trying to alter the American legal landscape via executive order. His latest missive instructs the Department of Homeland Security to assemble definitive lists of eligible, voting-age U.S. citizens, using data provided by the Social Security Administration; to synchronize those lists with voting officials in the states before each federal election; and then to cooperate with the U.S. Postal Service to ensure that any illegitimate ballots cast by mail are nixed at the source. According to a White House spokesman, Trump's plan would enable the federal government to "verify" that ballots are not only "being sent to people who are eligible to vote" in the first instance, but ensure that those which are returned are "returned by eligible voters only."